Beetle

If you were following the massive international launch of the 2012 Beetle you might have noticed that a few news sites published the images before the press embargo of 1pm GMT. Those sites have felt the full wrath of some frightening VW lawyers and retracted their stories.

These then are the first official pictures of the 21st Century Beetle. Some UK sites are claiming an early 2012 release date, so we presume we’re looking at a July-September launch in SA. We’ll keep you posted.

It seems the car is based on the chassis from the Golf 6, but hey, which cars in the VW stable aren’t. Expect a full line up of VW engines, from the little 1.4 litre twincharged unit, all the way to a 2.0 turbo.

The interior looks like every other VW I’ve ever driven, which is no surprise, but at least you’ll be able to spec all the goodies like SatNav and the HDD music system with touch screen.

If you’ve been behind the wheel of an original beetle, you’ll know that they are possibly some of the worst cars you could ever drive. Even so, the car became an icon and after a frankly lame attempt at reviving the model in the 90s, VW have hit back with a huge launch for the 21st Century Bug. We’ve got all the details.

If you were about to make the mistake’ of buying the current generation VW Beetle, hold it right there! As per Autocar, the next generation VW Beetle arrival is on the cards and it may hit the market as early as 2011 after its LA Auto Show debut in November this year. Excitingly, the next edition could come with a 2.0-liter engine producing 210 bhp, making it the most powerful engine ever to bless the Beetle.

More to it, the US fanatics could get their hands on a 5 cylinder 2.5L model capable of churning 170bhp. Rumors are also ripe about a hybrid variant, but that remains yet to be detailed. The next edition will share some traits from the VW Ragster (Ragtop+Speedster) concept, especially the roofing, though the iconic features such as the rounded lights and wheel wings will remain unaltered.